LA

LOST ANGELES

Los Angeles, the alleged city of Angels… Hmmm. I’m thinking it’s more like city of ghetto rats, Mexican gangsters and trampy hookers. Our take on LA was pretty sorely received, since our trip to LA was so ridiculously last minute, I literally booked the first available room in downtown LA – literally as the flight was boarding whilst we were in Tahiti. When we arrived into LA, we didn’t have overly high expectations, but they soon plummeted once the cab pulled out the front of our ‘hotel’. Accommodation booking 101: never stay in a hotel that offers an hourly rate for rooms! Our cabby literally told us to stay off the streets as much as possible and not to go any further east of our block. Nothing like a local instilling a good dose of fear into you upon arrival! We finally got into our room and unfortunately there were no upgrades available. Mind you, such upgrades certainly didn’t consist of beachfront or butler service like Fiji! Nevertheless, we necked up and got into our daggiest clothes so our fellow ghetto residents didn’t feel the need to bust a cap in our asses just for a couple of dollars. We ventured around the well populated streets for a good 10minutes before we decided to actually take the cabby’s advice and locked ourselves in our hovel until we figured out what to do next. The night passed with the soothing sounds of sirens and screaming on the streets down below coaxing us to sleep – but strangely, it was more like a micro sleep. The next day, we decided to get out of the hell hole and hang out in Hollywood, Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive. You know, as you do. It was amazing, Hollywood, not so much – a bit of a trashy gathering really, but Beverly Hills and surrounds were just awesome. We stalked the likes of JT, Tomkat, Posh Beck’s and even Dr Phil. Also checked out the famous front gate of Michael Jackson’s residence where he so publicly drew his last breath…. And his friendly neighbour Ozzy Osbourne, he had such an elegant garden! Had a moment of gushing when we checked out Rodeo Drive… It really is as ritzy as you’d imagine. Even the air smells expensive! The next day we went to Santa Monica pier and Venice beach – famous for being the backdrop of Baywatch. No sightings of The Hoff, but we did see the watch tower that Pammy Anderson flaunted her bits from as well as what surely must have been the rent-a-crowd extras in possibly the exact same clothes they sported on set 20 years ago. Venice is such a time warp and puts Gold Coast to shame with the many hyper colour tees, white denim shorts and roller blades…. actually, we even saw several lots of the old school roller skates! Seriously daggy but lots of fun. They even have an open air ‘gym’ called Muscle Beach where bulked up buffs strut and parade their chiseled parts and do very little exercise other than flexing for the passing gawkers. Hilarity it’s best. We then ventured back to the ghetto, checked out and checked our precious selves into the Westin for a bit of normalcy. It was an easy decision as it was close to where we had to pick up the hire car in the morning plus we scored an awesome deal (which WASN’T charged by the hour)!

WIN:
Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive and the celeb stalking. This part of California rocks, regardless of it’s unobtainability, it was an awesome place to visit just the same.

FAIL:
The Cecil hotel and our fellow amigos who resided in this ghetto… Who weren’t our amigos at all! Fail, fail, FAIL!